Try CounterPoint: New Free App for Counting Bikes, Peds and More

[Anders Swanson]

Hi,

I work for a non-profit in Canada called Green Action Centre, leading a project called CounterPoint which I feel you will find interesting.

We developed a tool to make it easier to do manual line counts of bikes and peds. Anywhere. Immediately. 

The core concept is to crowdsource traffic counting by making it fun and easy.

No more clipboards or paper reports or hard-to-find count data.

Anyone can set up a "counterpoint" and data can be added in perpetuity. 

All of the data is downloadable by anyone.

Its free. 

Importantly, it was designed to be easily used both by engineering/planning firms and by younger people, schools, advocacy groups, non-professionals.

Also, just as important, the app allows the user to capture some interesting subsets in the category of "pedestrian" and "bike" (such as small-wheeled transportation, children on bikes, etc..) and important active transportation related conditions (such as weather, surface quality, in the hopes of developing better expansion factors in future). 

Its also kind of fun.

Try it and tell what you think:

You can try or explore the web-app version at http://www.counterpointapp.org. 

Or

You can download the just-released a new (and snappier) iOS version in the Appstore. 

(Just go to the appstore on your iphone and search "counterpoint". Look for the green drop symbol.)

Interesting Next Steps:

• We are in soft launch mode and welcome and feedback or criticism.
  
• We are currently working on Danish and Dutch translations, thanks to keen interest from the bicycle coordinator for the region of Utrecht and the Danish Cycling Federation. 
  
• We received interesting feedback from the Bicycle Network in Australia while in Adelaide to present at VeloCity 2014, and are looking at ways of building on their amazing "Super Tuesday" count campaign. 
  
• We have develop a school curriculum package that we are refining and plan to release in the fall. 
  
• We will be adding filters to the data download section so that you can filter out counts you don;t want. (For example, only using counts from team members you trust; only using counts done in the winter, etc.)
  
• We are revamping the social aspect and are adding Twitter integration. 
  
• We are currently working on vastly improving the "teams" portion and introducing the concept of a "campaign". 
  
• We are looking to add the ability to count intersections, and to create custom count types for things like helmet, gender, sidewalk riding. 
  
• We plan to incorporate some complex mapping to better visualize the accruing data. 
• Note: We will be releasing a flurry of updates to the appstore over the next couple months. We will consider feature request and definitely welcome any/all feedback. 

Interested in Becoming a Partner?

For international use, we could use some help with Spanish and French translations specifically. 

We also welcome international partners with local legal counsel who might be able to review the End User Licence Agreement so that is can technically be used in your country. 

Importantly, we welcome anyone willing to partner with us on local grants to help build out the rest of this tool. We have lots of fun bells and whistles planned. 

About us:

CounterPoint was developed by Green Action Centre's Active Safe Routes to School Program to fill what we saw as a national/international need for more data-based school tracvel planning (and opportunities for kids to act as traffic engineers).

So far, we have been funded thanks to some rather large grants from the Heart and Stroke Foundation, a generous school division in Toronto, a local foundation and a few others. 

Our core build team consists of a web developer, an Android developer, an iOS developer, a graphic designer and myself. We are supported by the accounting and project management team at Green Action Centre, and have benefitted greatly from R&D assistance from two IT student teams at Red River College in Winnipeg. 

We won a VeloCity Visionary Award in 2013.

We have presented this developing tool at numerous conferences in Australia, San Francisco, Austria, and here at home.

We hope to expand this to all jurisdictions and, eventually, with a pool of users, coordinate a count around the world for direct cross comparison of sites. 

->If you are interested in helping grow this project, or would just like to chat or offer feedback, contact us by phone at 204-797-1962. We welcome partners and input of all types and are keen to find ways of working together!

This tool belongs to you! Enjoy. 

Kindly,

       Anders Swanson

       Project Lead

        see us on...

      Facebook | Twitter

      1-204-797-1962 (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

p.s. Thanks whoever set this google group up. Great idea. I came across the group using PSU's site. I recognize some of the names listed (Thomas from the U of Zurich, for example. Hi Thomas.) 

[michaelholloway111]

Anders Swanson,

Thanks for posting.

Great Idea. I tried it out on desktop as a test. Makes in-person counting very easy.

Big issue: should be focused on counting Trips, not Vehicles. A few tweaks and it could be perfect. :)


Michael Holloway
Cycle Toronto Ward Group,
@Ward30Bikes

[Anders Swanson]

Thanks Michael. Great feedback. Agreed on all points. 

The nice thing about collecting data at the same location is that different perspectives can be compiled and cross-referenced, even if done during different counts or if only focusing on one thing. 

Here's what we're thinking, tell us your thoughts...

We have plans to add the ability to count all kinds of things: helmets/no helmets, sidewalk riding/no sidewalk riding, female/male, single occupant/number of occupants inn cars, approximate number of bus riders, bike/walk only, etc.. In order to make it easy for anyone from 8-80, we probably need to simplify to get good data. You can't count everything at once (although we are thinking of creating a "zen master version" where you can do all kinds of complicated swipes and drags and try and capture it all! 

In the beginning, we have decided to keep it relatively simple. The data will always be useful, and the more perspectives we include in future, the more complete will the picture be... Note that: If you try out CounterPoint on a very busy street, you'll probably find that it can be quite challenging to keep up - even with the basic count. That's part of what makes it fun. But it is also what will make it really really complicated to capture all of the above in one go... HOWEVER, if someone does separate count types for the above, and you include "null" values for the things you aren;t counting, you can start to fill out a complete picture. For example, if you decide to do just a bike-sidewalk count, and get 50% sidewalk riding for bikes between3-5 pm at a given counterpoint location, you can start to assume that it will be like that the rest of the time. If you are then wondering whether it has changed, you can go back and count only that again. Meanwhile, someone doing a full advanced count will be able to tell you what overall traffic looks  like and also what the percentage of cargo bikes is... 

Does that make sense? 

Please keep using CounterPoint whenever convenient (find a comfy bus stop near you, pet bike lane project or an office window) and keep the feedback coming. 

What you've shared already is very helpful. 

Let us know any thoughts you have on how things could be accomplished, what works what doesn't.

This app belongs to you. 

Kindly,

Anders Swanson

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